PHILADELPHIA — There was no reason for this game to have been decided by so few points, no reason for the 76ers to have granted Chicago any favors in the intensity category.

No reason for the Bulls to have anticipated it, either.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Chicago had wrapped up a loss at home in which Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau had used four of his starters in excess of 40 minutes each.

The Bulls were expected to be tired, flat or listless. Or all of the above. They sure didn’t play that way.

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Sixteen hours after landing in Philly, the Bulls handed the Sixers one of their worst losses of the season, 96-89.

In the fourth quarter, the Sixers shot 9-for-22. Overall, they were 2-for-14 from 3-point range. Ugly numbers in an uglier defeat.

Consecutive turnovers at the Sixers’ end of the floor resulted in back-to-back buckets at the Bulls’ end, with Joakim Noah’s 17-foot jump shot giving Chicago its largest lead, at 90-83, with 1:19 to go. Sixers coach Doug Collins called a timeout, but there was nothing left to do, really.

After his basket, Noah gave a curtain-call performance of the act he had gone to throughout the night – stuffing invisible pistols into their imaginary holsters on his uniform shorts. And right in front of the home team’s bench.

Jrue Holiday attempted to save the Sixers from an embarrassing loss with an eight-point, four-assist third quarter, during which the Sixers kept things nearly level with Chicago. Holiday finished with 26 points and nine assists.

In a five-point game with 60 seconds to go, Jason Richardson took an open 3-pointer when he didn’t need to. The shot clanged out and the Sixers were forced into committing fouls.

On the bright side, Richardson became the NBA’s 11th-leading 3-point shooter with a fourth-quarter trey. On the down side, the Sixers (12-10) suffered their fourth loss in six games.

The Bulls didn’t seem fazed at all by the Sixers’ desire to push the tempo – and the Sixers had every reason to.

The Sixers, by all accounts, should have made quick work of the Bulls. They didn’t. Actually, they made Chicago feel at home in Wells Fargo Center, with the on-court antics of a few Bulls.

Noah made a bucket toward the end of the first, cutting the Sixers’ lead to 24-21, and giving his first demonstration of that gunslinger show.

After halftime, at which the Sixers led, 44-41, the Bulls were at it again with their sideshow. Nate Robinson did his best impression of an airplane after one of his two 3-pointers in the third, inciting a few boos from the sparse crowd.

Chicago’s rust finally started to show in the third quarter, when lazy play on the defensive end allowed Thad Young to roam the baseline with ease and convert high-percentage opportunities. Even Evan Turner knocked down his looks from the paint.

All the while, Chicago’s Marco Belinelli and Robinson seemed to have found their shots at halftime, laying under a pair of dirty socks or something. Belinelli sniped a pair of 3-pointers, as did Robinson, to keep it a one-possession game for a majority of the period.